The FBI raid on the Fulton County elections center outside Atlanta on Wednesday looked to many like the latest attempt by the Trump administration to sow doubt on the 2020 presidential election. In fact, the goal is likely far more nefarious. It looks like a dress rehearsal for taking control of ballots in key states in November ¡ª when the Republican Party¡¯s control of Congress will be at stake and the president¡¯s ability to fend off accountability in jeopardy.
The raid no doubt appealed to President Donald Trump¡¯s preoccupation with his defeat in 2020. (He turned to social media late Wednesday and early Thursday to continue to elevate the many conspiracies about it.) But while the FBI raid fed the president¡¯s obsession, it had all the theatrics of a Hollywood thriller and was about as realistic.
Consider the fact that the county already was on track to turn over the 2020 voting records. In 2024, Georgia¡¯s state election board (which the Georgia GOP has stacked with 2020 election deniers) and the U.S. Department of Justice reopened an investigation in civil court into Fulton County¡¯s handling of the 2020 election. The board won a court order in December to unseal the ballots and deliver them to the federal government. The county appealed, but had scheduled a Feb. 9 court date to work out how to transfer the files.
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